Advise and Consent (67 page)

“Whoever knows what the President is contemplating?” he asked.

“I think we’ve had enough on that subject, Senator,” Orrin Knox said sharply.

“I think it’s very interesting, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Hines said, not at all abashed. “Apparently in spite of what we have been led to believe, the President doesn’t have the slightest intention—”

“I don’t know what you’ve been led to believe, Senator,” Orrin said bluntly, “but it didn’t come from the President, did it?”

“No,” Senator Hines agreed blandly.

“And it didn’t come from you, did it, Senator?” Orrin demanded, swinging suddenly on Brig, who smiled and only disclosed to Lafe, who had felt his arm grow tense against his as the questioning proceeded, that he was reacting to it much more than he showed.

“No, sir,” he said calmly.

“Then I think we’d better get on with this and forget the rumors, George,” Senator Knox suggested firmly, and after a moment George Hines grinned.

“Very well, Mr. Chairman,” he said. “I just thought it was interesting, that’s all.”

“No doubt,” Orrin said dryly. “Rumors are always more interesting than facts.”

“If it is rumor,” Senator Hines said, triumphantly having the last word.

After that there was of course no holding the press, who were determined to make Howie talk and surrounded him outside the door for that purpose when he was excused half an hour later. But he remained adamant, and after repeating politely several times for the hastily gathered television cameras that, “I have nothing to add to my testimony before the committee,” he summoned his entourage and departed with an air of being bound on missions of high import, as perhaps he was. This left Brig, who had been corralled and asked to stand by, and presently he was standing in the glare of the lights while the tourists gathered and gawked in the hall and Orrin and Lafe, by a tacit agreement, stood impassively at his side.

“Roll ’em,” somebody said, and CBS stepped forward with a bulldog air.

“Senator,” he said, “you heard Secretary Sheppard’s testimony that the
President has decided to let Mr. Leffingwell’s nomination stand—”

“I didn’t hear any such thing,” Brig said easily. “I heard an impression, but I didn’t hear any fact. Did you?” he asked Orrin, and the senior Senator from Illinois shook his head and said firmly, “I did not.”

“Well,” CBS amended, somewhat lamely, “at least he left the implication that there might be some doubt about what the President is going to do.”

“Did he?” Brig asked impassively.

“How does that conform with your understanding of the situation as expressed by the President last night?” CBS asked doggedly.

“Did you read my statement from the White House last night?” Brig asked.

“Yes, sir,” CBS said.

“Did you understand it?” Senator Anderson asked.

“Yes, sir,” CBS said, flushing a little.

“I have nothing to add to it,” Brig said calmly. “Is that all?”

“Do you expect a statement soon from the President?” NBC asked. Brig hesitated for a moment as Lafe made a little warning movement at his side.

“I would expect he would make his position known in due course,” Senator Anderson said.

“Do you expect it to be pleasing to you, Senator?” NBC inquired, and Brig smiled.

“I would expect it to be consistent with the President’s usual patriotism and high concept of his office,” he said smoothly. “Anything more?”

“Nope,” CBS said. “Thank you, Senator.”

“My pleasure,” Brig said, not without acid.

But as they walked along back to the Office Building, taking, as Lafe said, “the overland route” rather than the subway because they wished to enjoy the beautiful day, he was more concerned than he wished to reveal, even to them. This did not fool them, however, and Orrin with a determined attempt at tact that was so far out of character it was funny talked of the aid bill and the legislative perils it faced this year, while Lafe was full of interest about the Interior appropriation. Just before they parted to go to their offices, with a promise to meet a little later for lunch in the Office Building cafeteria, Lafe asked casually, “By the way, what’s with Furious Freddy?”

“What is?” Orrin asked.

“I don’t know,” Lafe said, “but he got paged out of the restaurant about nine-thirty to take a phone call and came back all excited about something—I mean, not just raving as usual, but really excited.”

“Was it local?” Brig asked dryly, raising the topic they had been busily avoiding. “Maybe he got the true word from the White House.”

“No, they said long distance,” Lafe said.

“Oh, well, whoever knows about Fred?” Orrin asked, dismissing him. “And who gives a damn?”

“My sentiments exactly,” Brig agreed with a grin. “See you at lunch.”

Back in his office, however, going over his mail and checking on the day’s routine, some little warning signal kept recurring in his mind. Fred’s expression and his unprovoked nastiness earlier in the morning; Lafe’s report of a long-distance phone call. What did they mean? What could they mean? Did they mean anything? And why should he suppose that they had anything to do with the nomination or with him? But he could not quite get the thought out of his mind, and it was still nagging uneasily, for no particular reason he could understand, as he went along half an hour later to lunch.

In the cafeteria the early editions of the
Star
and the
News
were already on the newsstand. LEFFINGWELL FATE UNCERTAIN, the
Star
said cautiously; “AGREEMENT” IN DOUBT
....
WHO WON? the
News
asked in large type on the front page, and in smaller type below, HINT WHITE HOUSE MAY REJECT SENATE DEMAND FOR LEFFINGWELL OUSTER. “It was expected,” The
Star
story concluded, “that the question might be further clarified this afternoon at the regular four o’clock briefing of correspondents by the President’s press secretary.” Brig bought both papers and studied them thoughtfully as he stood in the slowly moving line, while at a nearby table AP, UPI the
Herald Tribune
and the
Washington Post
virtually stopped eating to study him. His expression was completely noncommittal, however, and so was his greeting when he came by with his tray a little later and went on to the back row of tables reserved for Senators. There he found that Orrin and Lafe had been joined by Dick Suvick of Alaska, which cramped conversation some, and so the meal passed in an equally noncommittal fashion. As soon as it was over he went back to his office, checked to find out if the Majority Leader was in, and, ignoring a rather odd reluctance he seemed to note in his voice, went on immediately to see him.

“Mary,” he said, and this was the fourth or fifth—or was it the fifth or sixth, he was beginning to lose count—time today that he thought someone had looked at him with an unusual intentness, “is the big boss in?”

“Just a minute, Senator,” she said politely. “I’ll find out.”

“I know he is,” Brig said, starting toward the inner office. “I talked to him on the phone a minute ago, remember?”

“So you did,” Mary said pleasantly, “but would you mind waiting just a minute?”

“I think I would,” he said, suddenly annoyed, and with a rare expression of anger he strode on through the middle office and without bothering
to knock opened Bob’s door and went in. The Majority Leader was seated at his desk apparently doing nothing, for he looked up slowly when his young colleague entered and made no attempt to pretend that he was reading any of the letters piled high on the desk before him.

“Hello, Brig,” he said. “I had an idea it was you. Sit down.”

“I told you on the phone it would be,” Senator Anderson said shortly; then his manner changed as the temporary annoyance passed. “How are you, Bob?” he asked, more equably. “I see you’ve got a lot of those, too.”

“Oh yes,” Senator Munson said.

“What do they want you to do?” Brig asked.

“Mostly confirm Leffingwell,” Bob Munson said. His visitor smiled.

“So do mine,” he said, “though most of Utah seems to be giving me a general endorsement for whatever I want to do. What have you heard from the President?”

“I haven’t,” Senator Munson said, and Brigham Anderson looked surprised.

“Somebody seems to have,” he said. “The
News
and the
Star
seem to think he’s backing out. Is he?”

“Oh no,” the Majority Leader said with an odd little expression. “He isn’t backing out. He’s going through with it.”

“Well, that’s good,” Brig said, feeling and sounding relieved. “I was beginning to get just a little bit worried. I believe him when he gives his word, and all that, but—”

“Did he give his word?” Senator Munson asked with a sort of mock surprise his young friend found puzzling.

“Yes,” he said. “Didn’t he? At least it was implicit in what he said, I thought.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Senator Munson said. “What are you worried about?”

“Well, the reports in the
Star
and the
News
,” Brig said. “Plus the fact that Howie got very coy in Foreign Relations this morning and as much as said the President wouldn’t withdraw the nomination. I’m afraid the press may have gotten the wrong impression, because I didn’t feel I could argue with him and tell what I knew, so—”

“That’s right, Brig,” Bob Munson said, again with a sort of unhappy irony that Senator Anderson found baffling. “Don’t tell what you know. That would upset his plans no end, if you did that.”

“Well, I won’t,” Brig promised, “but I’d still like to be sure everything is going the way we planned and that there haven’t been any slip-ups.”

“It’s going as planned,” the Majority Leader said, again with a peculiar wryness, “and I don’t imagine there will be any slip-ups.”

“Did you decide on anybody last night?” Brig asked. “Not that I want to know until the name actually comes up, of course, but just so I’ll be able to ignore all the newspaper talk and feel at ease about it. Did you?”

“Oh, Brig,” Bob Munson said with a sudden mixture of impatience and what seemed, curiously, to be pain. “Why are you so decent and so—” He stopped abruptly. “No, we didn’t decide on a name last night,” he said, sounding almost angry.

“I thought that’s why he wanted you to stay,” Brig said in a puzzled voice, and the Majority Leader smiled in a strange way. In fact, it suddenly seemed to Brig that everything he was doing and saying this afternoon was strange.

“So he said,” Senator Munson said. And he repeated it slowly: “So he said.”

“Do you suppose we should call him and—and talk it over?” Brig asked hesitantly, for he was not at all sure, now, what the matter was with Bob or whether he should try to figure it out. He was beginning to think he couldn’t.

“I don’t think so,” the Majority Leader said shortly, not looking at him. “No.”

“Bob,” Brigham Anderson asked earnestly, “am I offending you in some way? Shall I leave?”

“No, you’re not offending me,” Senator Munson said, a trifle too loudly. “What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know,” Brig said, sounding baffled and unhappy. “You seem so sort of—strange today. What’s the matter? Have I done something?”

Senator Munson stared intently at the letters before him for a long moment. He did not look up when he spoke.

“No,” he said. “You’re all right, Brig. It isn’t your fault. I’m just—tired from last night, I guess. I don’t mean to be unfriendly.”

“Well, I hope not,” Brig said, trying to restore the conversation to their usual bantering tone, though it didn’t quite come off. “I should hate to think I had betrayed my gallant leader.”

“You haven’t betrayed me,” Senator Munson said. “God, no,” he added harshly, in a voice Brig couldn’t interpret except that he knew it indicated he had really better go. Maybe it’s Dolly, he thought; maybe they’ve had a fight. Maybe that’s it.

“Well, thanks Bob,” he said, somewhat awkwardly. “I just wanted to get your reassurance that things are still the same as they were last night.”

“They haven’t changed,” Senator Munson said, again with a peculiar little laugh. “You can be sure of that.”

“Well, good,” Brig said, and he meant it. “If you should be talking to him, you can tell him they haven’t changed here, either. I’m keeping my part of the bargain, tell him. He can count on me.”

“Brigham,” Bob Munson said harshly, “I really do think you had better go now. Please. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I’m not feeling very well today.”

“Sure, Bob,” Senator Anderson said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he added apologetically.

“Oh, please,” Bob Munson said in a voice that sounded very oddly almost as though he were going to cry. “Oh, please.”

“All right, Bob,” Brigham Anderson said hastily. “I’m going.”

After this conversation, which was not exactly calculated to reassure even though it did tend to allay some of the misgivings about the White House that the press stories had aroused, he went back to his office quite bothered. He didn’t know what Bob’s problem was, but he had certainly sounded and acted as though he were terribly unhappy about something, and his young colleague, much as he wanted to help, didn’t quite know how. If it was a falling out with Dolly, he couldn’t, things like that had to be solved by the people concerned and outsiders never helped much; if it was something to do with the Senate, maybe Bob would let him know presently, and then he would be able to help. Apparently it did not concern the nomination, for Bob seemed to think that was moving along as planned, and for that Brig felt grateful and relieved, even though he felt now that it had been foolish of him to doubt the President’s conduct even for a moment. It had been difficult not to, with Howie’s peculiar reaction in the committee; the unpleasant little brush with Fred, who had made such a point of being Bob Leffingwell’s noisiest champion; and then the press rumors, not based on too many specific facts but, he knew from experience, based on a pretty accurate assessment of the mood of the moment in Washington plus a logical projection of what it might lead to. Evidently in this case, in view of the Majority Leader’s statements, the projection was mistaken, but that had not made it any less disturbing for a little while.